The Archbishop of Canterbury on... the twatting Qatar World Cup

RETURNING to consciousness in a prison cell, a fresh gash on my forehead and my kneecap sore as if repeatedly and vigorously applied to a groin, I recall how I came here.

At dinner with an esteemed Catholic counterpart, I fell into heated argument over the vexed theological issue of transubstantiation.

Increasingly querulous as the table wine flowed, I snarled ‘blood of Christ? Piss of Christ, more like’ before flinging a cup in his face. An altercation ensured where the police were called but not before I had got in a good few blows, as ersatz Defender of the Faith.

Arranging bail, I return to my chambers where I learn the economy is in a parlous state, officially in recession and Britons paying more tax for poorer public services. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt blames ‘global factors’.

Christ’s sizzling cock on a kebab skewer, ‘global factors’? Global factors that happen to have dumped us neck-deep in shit while leaving the rest of the world out of it? There’s five fucking reasons why it’s come to this: Brexit, the Tories, Brexit, the Tories and Brexit. We’d be this fucked if there’d been no Covid and Putin and Zelensky were gay lovers in a civil partnership! 12 years of Tories gorging themselves in the public trough coupled with what even the idiots who voted for it are realising was the single stupidest decision any nation has ever made! Brexit! Not that the BBC or Labour dare say it, but Brexit!

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has excoriated the government for ‘making families pay for their economic carnage’. On Twitter she commented, ‘Today people will be asking themselves: are me and my family better off with a Conservative government?’ while in September she accused the government of ‘actively working against families’.

Fucking hell, what is it with you and fucking families? Do people only count if they’re in a fucking family? Suppose you don’t want a fucking family or can’t have a fucking family or hate your fucking family? Have you got to go find some other political party? My family caught me having a wank in the garden shed when I was 16 and sent me into the sodding church! Ruined my life, the cunts! Families can fuck right off!

The Qatari authorities have at the eleventh hour banned the sale of alcohol in and around the stadia at the forthcoming World Cup, raising the ire of sponsors Budweiser.

You know, it’s fair to say I don’t see eye to eye with the fucking Qataris but they tickled my funny bone with this one! I mean, any cunt looking for a mass piss-up who chooses Qatar of all places deserves to get mugged! And if told in advance the only beer on sale is fucking Budweiser, whose manufacture literally involves brewery employees pissing into vats, they deserve to be double-mugged! Serves you right for abandoning every scruple a decent person might have and choosing to attend this sportswashing shitshow!

Finally, David Baddiel, Frank Skinner are to issue a festive version of Three Lions to mark the winter World Cup. It will feature altered lyrics such as ‘Three Lions on a Sleigh’ and ‘Yule Rimet still gleaming’.

How to mix a cocktail of liquid shite by putting together the four worst things in the world: the Qatar World Cup, Christmas, the fucking England team and songs about the fucking England team, shake vigorously and shower fucking everywhere! You’ve released this bastard about 12 times, we’ve all heard it 12,000 times and with this being a tournament built on the back of fucking slave labour, some of us don’t feel like doing the conga to your shit tune tarted up with some crappy puns! Fuck off, you pair of greying, irrelevant old cunts!

Voluntarily attending speed awareness courses: my idea of fun, by Gareth Southgate

THE public perception of me as all work and no play couldn’t be more wrong. Here’s how, when not leading England into an evil football tournament, I let my hair down:

Give my wheelie bins a really thorough wash

Household cleanliness is like international management – proper preparation is key. So every other Tuesday I treat my bins to a really good washing out. Clean bin, clean mind. I like to work from green via blue to brown, except for summer months when that order obviously reverses. If I’m holiday or there’s a midweek game, I pass the duty to my assistants, but they never quite do it to the bossman’s level.

Do the ironing

I could afford a dry-cleaner, of course I could. I’m on as much a year as Ronaldo gets every ten weeks excluding sponsorships and investments. But it concentrates the mind, every Sunday, to iron the seven shirts, pairs of trousers and waistcoats I’ll need the following week. I’ll think about tactics, laying out socks in a 3-5-2 formation with overlapping wing backs, or just watch classic Holby City from 1999.

Voluntarily attend a speed awareness course

I drive my Renault Espace with proper due care and attention and I’ve never so much as had a parking fine. If I had I’d resign. But my quarterly trips to North Wales are a delight. Martin, the facilitator, has become a friend. He’s the Pelé of speed awareness. I sit at the back, free of charge, he calls me gaffer, I get a a timely reminder that 20 is plenty near a primary school.

Update Wikipedia

To unwind I like nothing more than firing up my 2017 Acer laptop and editing me some Wikipedia.com. I began when trolls falsely claimed on my personal page that I was 17m tall, once set fire to a skip outside Villa Park and was sacked as Middlesborough manager for illegally importing crocodile eggs, two of which aren’t true. I liked it so much that once I’d set my record straight I kept on. To this day I’m up all hours, smiling broadly, keeping on top of pages as varied as Peter Andre, pistachio nuts and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Grout

There’s nothing like grouting. Laying your tiles out, setting the spacers, pouring in a fresh load of grout and getting them good and even in perfect grids? I can’t get enough of it. Sadly, even when you own a six-bedroom detached mansion, there’s only so much grouting available. I’ve tiled it inside and out – the neighbours call it Public Convenience House – and there’s not an inch left. So nowadays I just grout both sides of a 16ft square board and stack it behind the shed.